Eagle Valley and Battle Mountain soccer squads prepare for potential state tournament matchup

No. 3 Battle Mountain might meet an extra motivated opponent in the second round of the 4A state boys soccer tournament. But after three decades of coaching, Dave Cope isn’t going to count his chickens before they hatch.

“We haven’t mentioned Palisade yet,” the longtime Husky head coach said as this sensationalistic sports reporter peppered him with questions on Wednesday about a potential second-round matchup with Eagle Valley next week. “We’ve been taught the hard way that you don’t want to look past your first round matchup. In many ways, the first round is the most stressful.”

Battle Mountain hosts No. 30 Palisade in Edwards on Thursday night at 5 p.m. Down the road in Gypsum, No. 14 Eagle Valley faces No. 19 George Washington at the same time. If both Eagle County teams win, they’ll meet in Edwards on Nov. 5.

“I love it. You want the best. You want the best challenge, potentially drive a good crowd, good competition,” said Eagle Valley head coach Bratzo Horruitiner, whose team came into the season with three goals: make the postseason, host at least one playoff game and beat Battle Mountain.

“And we still have all three alive,” he added. “It’s cool.”

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The rivals enter the playoffs on a different trajectory. Eagle Valley (10-4-1) won their last four games — moving up five places in the RPI rankings in the process — while the Huskies (9-4-2) lost their last two. They were without leading goal scorer Jakob Methvin in a 5-0 season-finale loss to No. 1 Mullen last week. Cope said systematically strengthening the schedule with tough opponents in October is intentional.

“We’re trying to finish the season with games like that so we have something to look at on film and really objectively analyze ourselves against a good team,” he said. “But also so we’re a little bit humble coming into the playoffs.”

After all, upsets do happen.

In 2022, No. 16-ranked Battle Mountain benefited from 32-seeded Coronado knocking off No. 1 Durango in the first round. The Huskies proceeded to take care of the Cougars in the second round and eventually made a run all the way to the state championship game. They’ve been on the tragic side of upsets, too.

In 2018, the No. 5-seed was 13-1-1 coming into a first-round matchup against No. 28 Kennedy (8-6-1) and ended up losing 5-0 on their home field. Similar to the current team, that squad was led by a prolific scorer, Dani Barajas, whose career and single-season records were destroyed by Methvin this season. Cope would prefer if the similarities between the two teams don’t extend to first-round outcomes.

“We know you can’t look ahead in the bracket and we try to impart that to our players, too,” he said. “We’ll have a week to think about (Eagle Valley) after Thursday if we have the privilege of playing in that game, but we can’t get too excited.”

Battle Mountain is 26-0 against Palisade going back to 2009. Since leaving the Western Slope League, however, the Bulldogs have steadily improved. After back-to-back 1-14 years, they went 4-11 in 2024 and won five games this fall.

“They’re a decent team that’s coalescing at the right time,” Cope said.

Horruitiner said it’s hard to get a read on the Devils’ opponent, since George Washington has only one game video online. Based on what he has seen, he thinks Thursday will feature a dual of similar styles.

“They’re crafty and have a great pace of play,” he said. “Of course, we have the carrot to beat them and see Battle Mountain one more time.”

Similar to Cope, Horruitiner isn’t minimizing his first-round opponent.

“Anybody can beat anybody on any given day,” he said. “We have to perform. We have to be as efficient as we can and eliminate as many mistakes as we can.”

As connoisseurs of the CHSAA Selection & Seeding Index, Cope and Co. weren’t surprised with the pairings. And while there’s been league titles on the line in the two Eagle County teams’ regular-season history, Cope can’t remember ever playing Eagle Valley in a playoff game in his three decades at the helm of the boys program or two with the girls. In the team’s first matchup this year, Methvin scored three times to lead the Huskies to a 4-0 win in Gypsum. In the Oct. 3 rematch, Eagle Valley put two scores on the board but allowed another hat trick to Methvin — who has 32 goals and 12 assists in 13 games this year — in a 4-2 loss.

“It was very obvious what he did to us — he’s a great player and we know he’s coming,” Horruitiner said. The first-year coach said a third matchup will “definitely be a better game” since both teams know each other more.

“They saw our strengths and saw what we brought different in the second game,” he said. “We have to be creative. I have a few ideas.”

Horruitiner credited his assistants, former players Jose Gonzales and Leo Rosales as well as goalie coach Rob Veitch for helping the young Devils cultivate a new culture.

“The team has become more of a family,” Horruitiner said. “All the starting 11 and all our subs are allowing us to be flexible and respond to different things with different plans. It’s been really fun.”

Road to Switchbacks Weidner Field

Mullen is not only the odds-on favorite to win the whole thing — the Mustangs (13-1-1) are also probably the most hungry. The current crop of seniors lost in overtime to Battle Mountain in the 2022 state semifinal, were trounced by the Huskies in the first round the following year and lost to Air Academy in last year’s state final. Still, Cope believes the 4A field lacks a truly dominant team.

Of the top-four teams, the Huskies — with four-straight semifinal appearances, two finals and a title — have probably the most recent historical success. No. 2 Silver Creek isn’t a dynasty and it’s reasonable to wonder if upstart Montrose is for real at the fourth spot. Meanwhile, No. 6 Greeley, which could face Battle Mountain in the quarterfinals, is the only undefeated team in the bracket. But crunching numbers and prognosticating playoff outcomes is pointless this time of year. September is for stat stuffing, Cope pointed out before adding, “Here’s where you build your legacy.”

“These are the tests,” he continued. “And it’s so good for kids for their character development as people to encounter all these challenges and try to live up to what’s expected of them.”